The First Step
by Dr Whatsit
Summary: It would have been easier to deny the entire thing had happened if the vast majority of the NIH had not actually witnessed it.


This one is for Zaedah, I'm keeping it vague for you.

Prompt Table: Cliché

Prompt: Declaration of Love.

* * *

The First Step

It would have been easier to deny the entire thing had happened if the vast majority of the NIH had not actually witnessed it. Frank found that it was the most entertaining event of the decade while Kate had nearly swooned in a faint (the only thing stopping her was the notion that no one would actually keep her from knocking her head on the ground if she did). Johanson from Research and Development had apparently won a large sum of money and two weeks paid vacation, while Eva slipped away from the scene with a giddy smile on her face.

Miles missed the entire thing. He had been too busy reading in the library to hear all the commotion.

The spectators would agree that there was not much yelling; although, they were certain there was enough sarcasm to make up for that fault. They were not circling each other like angry bulls, but she did have a folder, and it had been pressed to his chest threateningly a few times. He'd cut a impressively sinister figure in his black turtleneck and she'd been a force to reckon with in red sweater and customary long, white lab coat.

"You can't have two attractive people facing off in a hallway without the masses coming to watch," Koehlberg from finances stated later, explaining why he had left his station to a jittery intern.

"They were incredibly accurate on where to throw the insults, and amazingly articulate, for being so angry" Grant, chief of electrical security, told Marks, his second in command, later that day. "We'd all just assumed they had been romantically involved, but this was the proof we'd all been waiting for."

"I'm not going to lie," Maddie, the attending nurse, told Natalie later, "we were all excepting, hoping rather, that he'd kiss you senseless, but I suppose that would have led to somebody getting fired."

"I don't see why it was such a big deal," Miles shrugged, but everyone knew he was just trying to hide his self-deprecating disappointment.

No one thought to grab a video camera, but then again, there probably hadn't been any available, as is the case in most remarkably important events in life. The crowd had not milled in circle fashion around the dueling pair; not when _they_ had the responsibility of being more discrete than the two angry doctors. A vast majority of the listeners had crammed into Natalie's lab, where they got a wonderful front row seat plus drawn shades to hide them from view.

"I'm not going to lie," Brookes, one of the newer press liaisons, gossiped with Eva much much later, "it looked like Connor was starting to enjoy it...not that everyone was watching, just that Durant was so furious."

"At least it was in public this time, not my supply closet," Hank, the day janitor, told Corey, the night janitor, at the end of shift.

They had earned an applause at the end. Which had turned Natalie's face from a livid pale to an embarrassed fuchsia when she realized that the only reason the halls had remained remarkably clear in the entire ten minutes was because the onlookers had found rooms to hide in.

"It was kind of cute, watching her look around at everyone as they filed into the halls. She reminded me of my sister when she found out that mom really did know she'd broken Grandpa's urn," Caulfield, the IT girl from the third floor, told Miles.

"Of course, she was so embarrassed that everyone had seen her arguing with him, that she completely forgot to respond to the fact that he'd told her he loved her. We think he said it on purpose, just to give us a little show, but maybe not. He looked pretty disappointed when she didn't respond and walked away," Sergeant, the newest secretary told Maddie over a coffee in the break room.

"What the hell just happened?" Kate and exclaimed to everyone when Natalie stalked away from the scene.

"We all thought they were going to be fired," Brookes told the entire batch of new interns.

"It was bound to happen eventually," Frank told Kate to calm her down after Stephen had walked to his office without answering her.

"When is the wedding!?" An unidentified idiot yelled from the computer library.

So, at the rate the story was spreading through the grapevine, it would be impossible to claim it had never happened. It would reach the other directors before the week was over, and they'd all have a good laugh over it before seriously inquiring whether any action needed to be taken. Kate, of course, would tell them that Connor's team was the best, and with a little streak of rare humor, claim that the NIH had been needing a little bit of entertainment for a very long time.

Everyone who valued their lives and pensions would stop bringing it up after the third day.

"You knew people were watching," Natalie said, much much much later, perched awkwardly between the corner of his desk and his office door at dusk, accusing but no longer angry.

There was no one there but her to watch as he circled around the desk and stood before her, hands finding the sides of her face, "I did not."

"You had a perfect view into my lab, the shades are only good for hiding things when two dozen people aren't peaking out of them," she murmured in reproach, eyebrows raising in a challenge to his lie.

"Do you think we could deny it ever happened?" He asked wistfully, looking over her shoulder at the hall window before smiling down at her again.

"In fifty years or so, when everyone who saw it has dementia and Alzheimer's disease."

"Do you really think that in fifty years it's going to be your excellent arguing skills they actually remember or the fact that I made a very badly timed declaration of love?"

She smiled, and he knew that ten hours after the fact, she had finally let him win the argument.


End file.
